RAPD ANALYSIS - A RAPID TECHNIQUE FOR DIFFERENTIATION OF SPOILAGE YEASTS

Techniques for the identification of the spoilage yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and members of the Zygosaccharomyces genus from food and b everages sources were evaluated. The use of identification systems bas ed on physiological characteristics resulted often in incomplete ident ification or misidentification. Also the cellular fatty acid analysis failed on differentiating species within the Zygosaacharomyces genus. However, the Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) assay, using-sele cted 10-mer oligonucleotides, allowed discrimination between all speci es tested. For this RAPD assay, a simple and reproducible method of DN A isolation from spoilage yeast cells is described.